CASTLE ROCK FESTIVAL in Mülheim an der Ruhr is a tradition. Everyone who attends will come again next year. Like me. This is the third time I’m here to catch some nice photos, listen to the amazing line-up and meet nice people.

CASTLE ROCK FESTIVAL always takes place at the end of June. It’s actually a city festival, but its line-up is so great, that it can keep up with bigger metal festivals easily. It’s called “rock” but they don’t take this too seriously. Every year you can also find some medieval bands or other crossover genres in the billing. It’s always a well-mixed line-up, and everybody can find something to dance to.

HARPYIE at Castle Rock Festival 2018

CASTLE ROCK FESTIVAL – 19 editions and counting.

Besides the amazing music, this festival is nice because it’s family-friendly! You can see whole families with children visiting the festival every year. Also, there is a high-ground for wheelchairs. Often for people in wheelchairs, it’s hard to see the stage. So it’s nice to see that the organizers of CASTLE ROCK find a good way to give them the best possible view of the stage.

It’s always great to visit the festival because you always meet nice people and most of the bands come to the merch stand to sign autographs and take photos with fans. Everything is so cute and intimate. The venue itself is just beautiful. The whole event is worth a visit. I don’t know a single person, who’s ever said after the festival that it wasn’t worth the trip or worth the money! Mostly you meet the same people every year, which is a positive sign of how amazing this small “city festival” is.

Some formal information: festival tickets for both days are about 50 Euro, one-day-tickets cost a little bit over 30 Euro. Still, it’s a nice price when you see how many bands perform.

CASTLE ROCK FESTIVAL 2018 – the bands:

But the festival is about music, so let’s talk about that! I love how mixed the line-up is – every year you can discover some new amazing bands. There are always some small local bands, but also international ones like PAIN or LACUNA COIL this year and MOONSPELL last year. There are bands of several different genres in the billing, and there’s always one band that makes you think: “Hm, it’s actually not my thing but hell, this band is amazing live”.

I love to go to CASTLE ROCK FESTIVAL because of the whole package I get. Castle Broich is so beautiful, the festival’s sound is amazing and everything around it is just so perfect. It’s nice to see how every band has their fanbase there to support them. It’s a small festival but the support is bigger than on some of the bigger festivals.

SATHLMANN at Castle Rock Festival 2018

This year the weather is very hot. It’s quite nice that the organizer has prepared a water sprinkler to cool down the front row a little bit. During the breaks between bands, people get shelter in the shade to avoid the extreme sun, too. But in general, the audience doesn’t care about the temperatures. During every performance, the area in front of the stage is full of people. Especially for the headliners, all festival-goers come out to see them and it got even hotter due to all the people around. Add some pyrotechnics on top and we feel like in an oven.

It’s not possible to say, which band is the best, every band is great and amazing on their own. But the headliners deserve the headlining-spots. PAIN’s show is outstanding! It’s just so perfect, I can’t find anything to tell you that was not amazing. The light show with the pyrotechnics fits the music and the band’s performance so well. The sound is amazing and the singer, Peter, knows how to do a concert well. It was just a perfect show for a perfect day.

For LACUNA COIL it wasn’t such a perfect concert. The show itself is amazing – Cristina Scabbia’s voice is just awesome. But the show starts a little bit late and so they had to cut out three songs. It’s a little bit disappointing because the headliners only get 75 Minutes, which is not a full set. If they have to cut three songs out of the setlist, there is only a playtime of 60 minutes left, which is a way too short for a headliner. Nevertheless, the concert is fantastic, like actually every LACUNA COIL show. It’s an amazing live band and if you are not a fan before the show, you go home as a fan after the concert. That is what happened to me when I went to my first LACUNA COIL show.

For me, it’s only the third time I attend the festival but never before have the headliners been so amazing. The whole line-up is extremely good this year and from what I hear from other visitors, all agree: CASTLE ROCK 2018 was an awesome festival!

Yvonne Otte is a concert photographer from Düsseldorf. She prefers Symphonic Metal, but listens to and photographs artists from many different genres. Known on social media by her handle “Photographyve”.